Brewers lose Farris to Mariners in Rule 5 draft

ANDREW GRUMAN

FS Wisconsin

The
Milwaukee Brewers did not make a selection in any of the three phases of Thursday's annual Rule 5 draft at the winter meetings in Nashville.

As expected, Milwaukee lost second baseman Eric Farris in the Triple-A phase of the draft, to the Seattle Mariners. Farris, Milwaukee's fourth-round pick in 2007, had two different stints with the big-league club, playing in one game in 2011 and 13 in 2012, hitting just 1-for-9 in his limited playing time.

Spending the majority of the last three seasons playing for Triple-A Nashville, Farris had his best season for the Sounds in 2012. He hit .286 with seven home runs, 31 RBI and 35 stolen bases in 131 games.

The Brewers could have kept Farris on their Nashville roster, which means that an interested team would have had to select him in the major league phase of the draft and keep him on its big-league roster for the entire season, but Milwaukee agreed with Farris' agent to bump him to the Double-A roster, making it almost guaranteed that he'd be selected. Now, all Seattle must do is keep Farris on the Triple-A or major league roster this season.

Farris, 26, was not viewed by the Brewers as an option to make their big-league roster. They have prospect Scooter Gennett slated to play second base in Nashville in 2013.

"Thank you to the Brewers and their fans 4 the love and overwhelming support throughout my career!" Farris tweeted shortly after being selected. "Lookin forward to the future w/#Seattle."

This is the first time since taking over as Milwaukee's general manager in 2002 that Doug Melvin has not selected at least one player in any of the three phases of the draft and the fourth time that Melvin hasn't selected a player in the major league phase.

Melvin has taken eight players in the major league phase with the Brewers, but only three have stuck with Milwaukee and made the Opening Day roster. Reliever Jeff Bennett made the roster in 2003, infielder Enrique Cruz and reliever Matt Ford both made the club in 2002.